Brainstorming BB10: Additional Peek and Flow Gestures

Hello CB,

Most of us are familiar with the Peek Gesture, and the "Peek and Flow Right" gesture for entering the BlackBerry HUB from within any application in one smooth move.

It is a pretty nice gesture but I think there is room to add two more gestures that would greatly enhance the User Experience and speed up Multitasking all while staying true to the BlackBerry 10 ways of Peek and Flow. After the Peek Gesture, the only move currently supported is to go Right to enter the HUB, there is much potential in going LEFT or just Continuing the Swipe Upwards.

The Swipe that goes UP!
It was noted that in BlackBerry 10, closing an active application is a two-step process. First swipe up from within the application to enter the Active Frames Home Screen, and then to Press a little "X" on the Active Frame of the said app. Closing an app could be much quicker and smoother and more "swipey" if the user could Swipe UP from within the application to initiate a Peek, and then Continue the Swipe upwards and take the app out of the screen to close it.

Swipe UP and LEFT for App Switching
The Playbook has an excellent swiping gesture that allows the user to switch from one app to the next. On the Playbook this is achieved by swiping in from any side bezel this allows the user to scroll through the open apps. Unlike Playbook, in BlackBerry 10, the Active App will always be the Top Right LEFT one among the Active Frames and the second App will always be to its Right. So i think it would be perfect if the User could Swipe UP from within any application, and then continue that swipe to the Left to pull out the Next App from the Right. I think this would be very intuitive especially for the Playbook users who have used the app switching gesture. The apps could mimic the behaviour of the Playbook apps when such a gesture is initiated, so that the next app does not automatically go fullscreen, instead it waits for a moment allowing the user to swipe and scroll between all the open apps.

I think if these gestures are implemented, they would make navigation through the OS more intuitive and fast. These gestures use the same Initial Gesture as required for the Peek and for entering the HUB, so once the User has done the initial Swipe UP from the Bottom Bezel, they have the choice to either go to the HUB, go to the next app, close the app, or return to the app, all without having to lift the finger from the screen

Nice idea for switching apps, but I'm pretty sure the full swipe up is how you put an active app into the Active Frames "dock", you can then close it.

If the full swipe up was to close the app, then how would you put it back into the Active Frames Dock?

My point being, if it's a distance thing (how far up you swipe the active app will either close or dock the active app), then there is a whole load of people who are going to misjudge the distance and close a whole load of apps they simply want to reduce to the Active Frames Dock. Or reduce to the Active Frames Dock when they want to close the app.

Nice idea for switching apps, but I'm pretty sure the full swipe up is how you put an active app into the Active Frames "dock", you can then close it.

If the full swipe up was to close the app, then how would you put it back into the Active Frames Dock?

My point being, if it's a distance thing (how far up you swipe the active app will either close or dock the active app), then there is a whole load of people who are going to misjudge the distance and close a whole load of apps they simply want to reduce to the Active Frames Dock. Or reduce to the Active Frames Dock when they want to close the app.

Si.

I don't have a Dev Alpha device, but I have seen some videos closely esp the one where Kevin demonstrates Flow. It appears that the apps follow your fingers. So if you swipe up to glance at your notifications, you need to keep your finger/thumb on the screen for the time it takes you to go through them, at this point if you lift your finger off the screen you will be taken to the Active Frames Home Screen, but if you want to return to your app you have to slide your finger back down to let the app maximize, or if you want to go to the HUB, you start moving your finger to the right to begin revealing the HUB.

So as far as i can see it seems that to minimize an app into an Active Frame you must Swipe Up, and then Lift your finger off the screen. Its like Flicking an app into an Active Frame.

As for closing the app in a single upward swipe, maybe when the finger reaches 3/4ths of the way up, a trash can can appear at the top as a visual cue so the user can guide the app into the bin in order to close it.

Last edited by Qaxl; 11-18-12 at 09:38 AM.
Reason: Added link to video

I personally love this idea. It would give you, the user, much more power just with your thumb. Think how sweet it would be to show someone, "look what I can do with my thumb, I can check my email real quick, back to my app, then over into my other app I was just using (this is where I wish they would go with a UI more like the Playbook), and then I will close this app, all without having to lift my thumb up!" Hard to say what other gestures they have coming for us though.

I personally love this idea. It would give you, the user, much more power just with your thumb. Think how sweet it would be to show someone, "look what I can do with my thumb, I can check my email real quick, back to my app, then over into my other app I was just using (this is where I wish they would go with a UI more like the Playbook), and then I will close this app, all without having to lift my thumb up!" Hard to say what other gestures they have coming for us though.

I think the swipe up having two functions is just asking for trouble from a ux point of view, there is just too much chance of inconsistency and causing confusion. Probably the best place to add a swipe up to close would be on those active tiles themselves.

The app switching peak would be good though and fits well with the idea of not going in and out of apps which is basically what you do when you go back to the active tiles page to switch apps.

I think the swipe up having two functions is just asking for trouble from a ux point of view, there is just too much chance of inconsistency and causing confusion. Probably the best place to add a swipe up to close would be on those active tiles themselves.

I see your point about having 2 possible outcomes with one same gesture becoming something confusing, but consider this ... the initial swipe up remains same across the board, so it becomes a kind of standard procedure. Once you have swiped a little way up, the app gets into a state where you can now do pretty much anything with it, and if the closing gesture requires the finger to travel all the way up to the top bezel (which is a long distance for a thumb to travel, you have to make an effort to make that happen on 4+ inch screens), and provides a visual cue such as a trashcan icon appearing near the top to help the user understand what is about to happen, would that not eliminate any confusions that might occur.

Ofcourse the Swipe up gesture on the active frames cannot be implemented because of the fact that active frames are on a screen from where the user can scroll either horizontally or vertically, so any new gestures on that screen would be out of question.

Besides its not just about adding a gesture to do something, I feel it is important to be able to close an app in one single step without having to go through the homescreen first making it an unnecessary 2-step process.

I understand what you're saying, but I still feel like the gestures are too similar. Maybe if you swipe up then swipe/flick to like the left upper corner in a diagonal motion and have the little garbage icon appear in the corner would work. But I do like your idea of swiping up and the left at a right angle.

I hope you can still flick an app up when minimized to close., sometimes flicking/swiping is just quicker than tapping.

Just my thoughts

Edit - I believe we have yet to see all the gestures, because we have not seen every app and process. Time will tell.

I think the swipe up having two functions is just asking for trouble from a ux point of view, there is just too much chance of inconsistency and causing confusion. Probably the best place to add a swipe up to close would be on those active tiles themselves.

Already works on current Playbook. Swipe up to tile-ize, then flick the tile up towards top of screen to dismiss the app.

Correction... Tile-ize then drag up and off top of screen

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